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I doubt Rondo intentionally "spit" on CP3, but I think it's reasonable to assume spit/sweat/something got on CP3 that he mistakenly assumed came from Rondo and that's what caused him to react the way he did. The fairest way to do this is suspend Rondo the same amount of games, something relatively light (3-5 range), CP3 for officially starting it with the finger in the face, Rondo for escalating with punching and CP3's return punches don't really matter to me/get taken care of with an "elevation" of his point in your face penalty. Ingram should receive the heaviest suspension. The initial act that started all this (pushing Harden for no reason) and running in punching at someone who could not defend himself. Something in the neighborhood of 10 feels appropriate.

I doubt Rondo intentionally "spit" on CP3, but I think it's reasonable to assume spit/sweat/something got on CP3 that he mistakenly assumed came from Rondo and that's what caused him to react the way he did. The fairest way to do this is suspend Rondo the same amount of games, something relatively light (3-5 range), CP3 for officially starting it with the finger in the face, Rondo for escalating with punching and CP3's return punches don't really matter to me/get taken care of with an "elevation" of his point in your face penalty. Ingram should receive the heaviest suspension. The initial act that started all this (pushing Harden for no reason) and running in punching at someone who could not defend himself. Something in the neighborhood of 10 feels appropriate.

I'm not really disagreeing with you at all, but I think it's likely going to be:

Ingram, to me, was a textbook "young kid whose prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet getting excited". He is supposed to behave like a fully grown adult, granted, it's the NBA, but I don't feel like he is really a bad guy here, just a hyped up kid coming to the defense of a teammate. I have a fair amount of sympathy for him.

As a Hawks fan, it's hard not to get a little excited after tonight...apparently the only other rookies since 2000 to put up 35/10 are LeBron and Curry. Obviously only one game, but Trae shut some people up today. It was fun to watch.

Just about all of the highly-drafted rookies are looking solid, which seems unusual? Could turn out to be a really good class.

It's not done yet, but Sac looks like it will knock off OKC, and more importantly for their (few) fans, they've looked really good, with lots of ball (and off the ball) movement. Iman Schumpert with the game of his career, perhaps. He's looked like the player some of thought he might be. For one night, at least.

As a Hawks fan, it's hard not to get a little excited after tonight...apparently the only other rookies since 2000 to put up 35/10 are LeBron and Curry. Obviously only one game, but Trae shut some people up today. It was fun to watch.

In addition to Trae Young having a fantastic game with 35 pts and 11 assists on 13-23 shooting, the Hawks other two rookies also got some run and made solid contributions:
Omari Spellman: 17 pts on 6-8 FG (4-5 on 3PT) in 23 minutes
Kevin Huerter: 9 pts/10 reb/4 ast/2 stl/1 blk with 3-5 on 3 PT in 25 minutes

Is there a reason we might expect backup centers to have artificially inflated PER numbers? (In the same way that, like, basically all relievers have lower ERAs than starters in baseball.)

((I'm asking sorta specifically for Montrezl Harrell, the Clippers' backup center, who always looks amazing to my amateur eye, and then when I check out his stats I see a guy with a 24.7 PER last year, though in just 17 minutes a game....and his team obviously doesn't trust those numbers, cuz they signed Marcin Gortat to be their starter this summer.))

I think there is? in terms of how teams are using personnel. Bigs without range / mediocre rim protectors, some of whom are potent scorers, are having a hard time finding starting gigs - and teams are trying to leverage their skills by upping their usage against defensively weaker second units (sometimes facing other big point/board, low range/defensive_versatility bigs).

Is there any research on whether or not rebounds by guards are more or less valuable than rebounds by bigs/wings? This is partly a college basketball-inspired question, as my alma mater has had a few guards in recent years who were pretty good rebounders, but I am sort of curious as to whether or not a good rebounding guard is actually valuable or if it's just a cute parlor trick.

On the one hand, I'd figure a guard getting a rebound could do more with it than your average seven-footer - the guard can take the rebound and immediately transition to offense in a way the big can't. On the other hand, I'd also figure that guards get rebounds that are less contested and further from the basket - a long three that bounces off the side of the rim and a point guard corrals it along the sideline with no one within five feet of him, that sort of thing.

Now, LeBron snatching a rebound kind of addresses both of those points....

Is there any research on whether or not rebounds by guards are more or less valuable than rebounds by bigs/wings?

I'm curious about this too, but I wonder if it's less of an advantage now than it was previously, given how many bigs are also capable of pushing the ball after a rebound. Not every team has a player like that, but of the teams I watch a lot, Horford, Draymond, Towns even, will frequently dribble it up rather than waiting to find the point guard.

[828] PER tends to be "inflated" for poor defensive bigs who (a) rebound and (b) score efficiently/get lots of assisted buckets.

[830] You're right in that the theory is that it's better for your guard/lead ballhandler to get those discretionary rebounds so you can push pace and get into your offense more quickly.

My question for the morning: we know that Denver and Utah have a greater than normal homecourt advantage due to elevation so it makes it hell to play there in the regular season. Do we know whether this additional boost applies to the playoffs or do players get used to it after having to play there multiple times in a 1-2 week stretch? Thinking about how much it would change Denver/Utah's odds if they had the overall 1 seed as opposed to a 3/4 seed.

Most notable Warriors stat through three games: The non Steph Curry portion of their roster is a combined 8-of-40 from 3.

There's always the big question how to take Warriors stats during the regular season, add to that the small sample size and who know what any of that means, if anything.

---

Who would have thought that the Bulls would have had a bad defense?

There are compelling arguments for playing LaVine and Parker together. Mayberry made a persuasive and well-reasoned one after Saturday’s game. But I still believe that the Bulls simply cannot play them together for significant minutes. It’s been only a tiny 29-minute sample, but the team has given up a 132.8 defensive rating when they have been on the floor together. As a frame of reference, the Phoenix Suns’ 111.6 defensive rating was worst in the league last year.

I don't know what Jabari was on the floor at the end of the tied Pistons game the other night, but the Pistons went right at him and scored easily.

Bucks fan here and Parker just cannot move laterally in basketball terms. He told the team he was fully healthy and they were like great let's see what you can do and then he goes on the floor and he's fine going straight ahead but nothing otherwise. And it never improved. Brewhoop talked about this a lot at the end of the season. Do teams check out other team's blogs or is that considered lowbrow so only go by what they see and assess? Just asking.

I'm asking sorta specifically for Montrezl Harrell, the Clippers' backup center, who always looks amazing to my amateur eye, and then when I check out his stats I see a guy with a 24.7 PER last year, though in just 17 minutes a game....and his team obviously doesn't trust those numbers, cuz they signed Marcin Gortat to be their starter this summer.

Not PER-related specifically, but I think backup bigs with good per-minute numbers sometimes stay backups because of foul issues. (Harrell has averaged 4.2 fouls per 36 minutes for his career so far; I don't have much context for that number but it's a higher rate than four of the top five in total fouls committed last season.)

The Blogabull post I linked earlier called it out, but if Parker (and Wade before) weren't from Chicago, the Bulls wouldn't have signed them. I'm not sure why the Bulls feel the need to severely overpay local talent (on some level, I do think they make some money off the local guys considering how much they play it up, but no way nearly enough to make up for how much they're overpaying).

The endorsement deal is one of the angles I find most interesting in the whole G-League/select-contract story. Even the very best high school basketball prospects aren't well-known outside of recruiting circles, so you wonder how much value shoe companies will find in giving out big money to 18-year-old G-Leaguers. Is it going to be the equivalent of MLB teams giving their top young players big contract extensions early in their careers - take the risk of some young talent busting so that you might have the next LeBron locked in to Nike or Adidas for the next 10 years at a super cheap price?

LeBron was already very famous in basketball circles when he was 16. I'm not sure that's the most apt comparison. Even Wiggins I recall hearing about when he was still in high school, and I don't follow any basketball at all outside the NBA.

838--I am not qualified to assess player effort unless the dude is just not moving on the court. But yeah this was discussed on the Bucks blogs fWIW. I always liked JP. But the Freak happened, he got hurt and like that he was passed over.

842--who is the worst player NBA wise who got pre NBA hype while in high school? I am curious. Is it like in baseball that if a guy is really good at a young age even if he does not become Mike Trout he's still in MLB for a while putting up some good stats?

The endorsement deal is one of the angles I find most interesting in the whole G-League/select-contract story. Even the very best high school basketball prospects aren't well-known outside of recruiting circles, so you wonder how much value shoe companies will find in giving out big money to 18-year-old G-Leaguers. Is it going to be the equivalent of MLB teams giving their top young players big contract extensions early in their careers - take the risk of some young talent busting so that you might have the next LeBron locked in to Nike or Adidas for the next 10 years at a super cheap price?

It looks like they're splitting the difference here with some kind of incentive-based contract.

My question for the morning: we know that Denver and Utah have a greater than normal homecourt advantage due to elevation so it makes it hell to play there in the regular season. Do we know whether this additional boost applies to the playoffs or do players get used to it after having to play there multiple times in a 1-2 week stretch?

Based on all the playoff games I've watched over the last 3 decades, I'd guess the latter. Maybe it's just that they're playing better teams, but neither Denver or Utah ever seems to be as home dominant in the playoffs as they are in the regular season.

846- There were a slew of guys drafted to the NBA right out of high school who SUCKED. Kwame Brown stands out: he was the number 1 pick, but at his peak was basically just an okay backup center.

I wasn't really paying attention back then, so this could be wrong, but my memory is hearing that the one-and-done rule got started because people (including, apparently, David Stern) were getting worried that too many high-school-to-NBA players were ruining the league. It wasn't so much about the LeBrons and Kobes, it was about lesser players who really weren't ready getting drafted high, getting handed millions of dollars and stinking up the joint.

One-and-done players still do this all the time, of course, and I personally have no idea how requiring one year in the minor leaNCAA would make much difference, but I guess there's still a lot of people wanting to require two years (while the NBA appears to be moving more toward funneling 18-year-olds into its own professional minor league.)

There were a slew of guys drafted to the NBA right out of high school who SUCKED.

True, but not necessarily an answer to the question. I don't remember any pre-draft hype for Kwame Brown, for instance (which he may have received! I was not paying much attention to the league in those days, so I'm a terrible resource for this question).

EDIT, expounding: There's a big gulf between "generated NBA hype" (very few guys: notably LeBron, Wiggins, Zion Williamson, kind of Bol Bol but maybe that's more about his name than him) and "was very highly rated for their class" (the same number of guys every real, regardless of their "absolute" level of ability).

Is it like in baseball that if a guy is really good at a young age even if he does not become Mike Trout he's still in MLB for a while putting up some good stats?

Maybe I'm misreading here, but there are plenty of guys who were great in high school or college, drafted high, and never even make the majors, and plenty of others who didn't do much when they got to MLB.

Going back 20 years, JaRon Rush is a pretty good example of somebody that flamed out. One year at UCLA and then declared but wasn't drafted. Alcoholism played a big part in that. Korleone Young might be as well, although I'm not sure he had the same NBA hype in high school.

842--who is the worst player NBA wise who got pre NBA hype while in high school? I am curious. Is it like in baseball that if a guy is really good at a young age even if he does not become Mike Trout he's still in MLB for a while putting up some good stats?

The more recently classes are too cluttered with guys who are just finishing school. This list isn't scientific at all. There are probably guys I left off just because I thought they were better than they were and vice versa.

Ooh I know that one. The high school team I was an assistant for played against his team in some tournament in Alabama. I remember him being great, handling the ball and shooting a bit, which was obviously impressive from a giant high school kid. Wikipedia tells me he's had a long european career to date. Certainly worse ways to spend one's 20s and 30s!

Oh, I know this one. He was a big that was highly touted because of his size and physique in HS, wound up going to Villanova. Unfortunately, he couldn't jump over a pencil and lacked any other transcendent skills that might allow a not-so-athletic big guy to have an NBA career. Spent all 4 years at Villanova as a decent but unremarkable player, currently playing in Europe.

I like these guys, NJ. I find them very appealing. Frank's just got to look for his shot more.

Same. It's just really funny to me how there's an abundance of guys who think they are much better scorers than they actually are and almost no one interested in creating for others. My hope is that they are able to drive up their value and we can trade one or two.

Same. It's just really funny to me how there's an abundance of guys who think they are much better scorers than they actually are and almost no one interested in creating for others. My hope is that they are able to drive up their value and we can trade one or two.

Spurs are curbstomping the Lakers in L.A. Lakers 1-6 from range early on, so that's still a thing. They're just way too small to guard Aldridge, and he's getting any look he wants. But they're still putting in the effort, so that's something.

EDIT: A quick 6-0 run gets them going a bit. I don't like anything except the effort, but so long as the effort's there, it's hard to get too upset. Low bar, I know, but after the last few years, and carrying all those clowns and bastards, I can't have crazy expectations.

The Boston Celtics, favorites to gain supremacy in a LeBron-less Eastern Conference, have the worst offensive rating in the NBA, following an ugly 93–90 home loss to the lowly Orlando Magic Monday night. In a season thus far marked by outrageously prolific scoring league-wide, the Celtics—loaded with slick and interchangeable perimeter weapons—are mustering a crummy sub-100 offensive rating through four games.

In the meantime, Boston’s most-used lineup—the terrifying Kyrie-Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown-Hayward-Al Horford group—is producing an alarmingly bad 79.3 offensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass. Not only is that the worst on the team, it’s like 20 points worse than the worst offense in basketball

I don't like anything except the effort, but so long as the effort's there, it's hard to get too upset. Low bar, I know, but after the last few years, and carrying all those clowns and bastards, I can't have crazy expectations.

Ugly game in SLC. Just goes to show that when you shoot 35% - and 25% on 3's - you can lose to anyone, anywhere.

One silver lining though - and I almost feel reluctant to admit it - but based on his NBA debut tonight...I might actually end up liking Grayson Allen. I was impressed by what he was able to do in limited time: 7 pts in 11 minutes on 2/2 shooting, including a 3 and a driving dunk, 2/2 at the line. His +6 was actually a team high.